Tag Archives: Ontario Hospital Association

As mentioned in a previous blog post, I attended the annual HIMSS conference held this year in sunny Orlando. Like Crysta Anderson who recently blogged about how social media friendly the event was, I too was impressed by the extent to which HIMSS encouraged use of social media. From free wi-fi (something not available at the Toronto Metro convention centre except in select locations for last year’s OHA HealthAchieve conference) to a social media booth, bloggers and tweeters were made to feel welcome and were encouraged to share their views and experiences.

Will the annual Canadian eHealth conference scheduled to take place this year in Toronto be as social media friendly? Hopefully the experience will be better than it was at last year’s event in Vancouver – hardly anyone was tweeting from the event. COACH, are you listening? Besides having a twitter handle, what will you be doing to encourage bloggers? Also, vendors, take note. A number of vendors at HIMSS held tweetups in their exhibit booths and GE Healthcare even treated a number of bloggers (including me) to an evening a Universal’s Islands of Adventure.

For better or worse, the phrase “meaningful use” is quickly becoming used to describe a metric by which many eHealth projects will be measured, either directly or indirectly. Enshrined in the legislation governing the funding of electronic health record implementations in the United States, this term has caught the attention of eHealth leaders and decision makers across the world. Close to home, for example, the theme for the eHealth track at this fall’s OHA HealthAchieve conference is “Meaningful Use: The Canadian Context”.

“Meaningful use is not only the primary goal for EMR adoption, it is also essential to health system sustainability and can serve as a powerful inductive force for the other key components of comprehensive nationwide health informatics infrastructure“.

They also note:

“The current US national dialogue on defining meaningful use criteria
and reconsidering initial targets is appropriate and productive.
Physicians and health informatics professionals are engaged in this
dialogue with payers, policy makers, product vendors, certification
agencies, politicians and patients.”

While they use the term explicitly, Dr. Morgan and Dr. Dermer describe a process for reaching consensus on “meaningful use” that includes “meaningful engagement” of all stakeholders. Having watched the US “meaningful use” debate for the better part of the past year, I believe that it is this “meaningful engagement” that is driving the constructive and productive debate regarding “meaningful use” and that has allowed the US to move so quickly in developing its eHealth strategy.

While “meaningful use” may be capturing many people’s attention, perhaps we should think more about the “meaningful engagement” that seems to be a core philosophy in the US “meaningful use” debate. I wonder if it is the process by which “meaningful use” was defined and the policies and standards needed to achieve it are determined that it is the more significant achievement.

Another way to think about “meaning engagement” is to consider a “middle-out” approach to eHealth strategies and architectures rather than either “top down” or “bottom up” approaches. Commenting on a blog post weighing the merits of top-down vs bottom-up approaches to developing the Australian eHealth strategy, Enrico Coiera suggests that a “middle-out approach” is a “co-production of industry, health service providers, and government“. He further states that “Middle out is about setting the agenda co-operatively from the start – consultation is not necessary because everyone is already in the room. These aren’t just words or cliches, they are a mind set.”

What do you think? Is “meaningful engagement” a metric that we should perhaps apply to the process by which eHealth related discussions and debates are measured? Is a “middle-out” approach more effective at achieving “meaningful engagement”?

The OHA Board recently identified the strategic performance indicators for its new 2010-2013 strategic plan. Of particular note, “Health Information Technology Adoption” was selected as one of the performance indicators. The complete list of indicators includes:

Number of Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Patients

Patient Satisfaction

Staff Engagement

Patient Safety Composite

Adoption of Governance Leading Practices

Wait Times Composite

Health Information Technology Adoption

Cost per Capita

According to the OHA, the next steps with respect to use of these indicators include “a review of the eight indicators by selected industry experts and development of definitions, baselines and targets”. I do hope that the Health IT industry has a role to plan in refining the indicator related to Health Information Technology Adoption. ITAC Health, do you have a position on this matter?

Following up on early post regarding LHIN use of social media, I was intrigued by the following item in the Ontario Hospital Assoication’s most Executive Report:

To address the growing expectation for accountability and transparency across the sector, the OHA, along with a number of partners in health care, has produced a unique “one-stop shop” approach to community engagement that supports both health service providers and Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) with new or existing community engagement strategies.
“Engaging People. Improving Care.” – or EPIC – has been developed as an easy-to-use website that includes over 60
useful community engagement resources. The first website of its kind in Ontario, EPIC allows users to search and tailor community engagement tools and resources specific to their needs, covering topics such as why community engagement is important, key steps to planning, and ways to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies. For further information, contact Sundeep Sodhi at 416-205-1307 or ssodhi@oha.com, or visit http://www.epicontario.ca.

I spent a few minutes scanning the EPIC web site. I was surprised to find no apparent information related to use of social media or other Internet-based tools for community engagement. Perhaps this information is contained in one of the many reference documents cited on the web site or I missed in my quick scan. If there is no such resource then I suggest that the site authors seriously consider adding information about how to use social media as part of a community engagement initiative. While technology is not the “magic bullet” to making community engagement work, it is certainly a powerful tool, one that is still relatively and for which guidance on best use is particular useful.

I recently completed a discussion paper on Consumer eHealth for a client. In my research, I found that the rapid adoption of social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter by the general public has not gone unnoticed by healthcare organizations and providers. Ed Bennett, a hospital web manager, tracks U.S. hospital use of social networking tools. According to Mr. Bennett’s blog, 473 U.S. hospitals are currently using YouTube, Facebook, twitter, or a blog (up from 410 when I completed the report six weeks ago).

An article[1] in the Telemedicine and e-Health Journal listed offers some thoughts on how Twitter might be employed by healthcare organizations:

Disaster alerting and response

Diabetes management (blood glucose tracking)

Drug safety alerts from the Food and Drug Administration

Biomedical device data capture and reporting

Shift-bidding for nurses and other healthcare professionals

Diagnostic brainstorming

Rare diseases tracking and resource connection

Providing smoking cessation assistance

Broadcasting infant care tips to new parents

Post-discharge patient consultations and follow-up care

I noticed this morning that the Ontario Hospital Association is hosting a workshop on social media entitled “Social Media Demystified: Best Practices and Setting Strategy with Confidence” on 21 January 2010. Clearly there is interest in the Ontario health sector and I look forward to seeing how Ontario healthcare organizations embrace social media.